Chapter 142 — A Proper Kit
Kellan had the blade waiting when Arlen arrived the next morning, laid out across a workbench in the shop’s back room, catching the forge-light in a way that made the metal look considerably more alive than it had on the display rack.
"Fitted properly now," Kellan said, offering it hilt-first. "Grip’s been reshaped to your hand specifically — small thing, matters more than people credit until they’ve used a blade that actually fits them instead of one they’ve simply gotten used to."
Arlen took it, and found the difference immediately — the weight settling into his palm with a precision his old sword had never quite managed, even after a year and more of familiarity.
"Test it properly," Kellan said, nodding toward a padded post standing in the corner. "I want to see it under real Aura output before I call this finished."
Arlen obliged, channeling Edgeline Strike through the blade the way he had a hundred times before, and felt the technique gather and release with a cleanness that made his old sword’s performance feel, in retrospect, muddy by comparison. The alloy took the Aura without any of the faint resistance he’d grown so accustomed to that he’d stopped noticing it entirely.
"There," Kellan said, satisfied. "That’s what Superior grade actually buys you — not raw power, understand. Craftsmanship and material working together so nothing’s wasted between what you put in and what actually comes out the other end. A Common blade might survive the same strike just fine. It just won’t give you back everything you spent making it."
"Is that the whole difference? Between grades, I mean."
"Simplified, but near enough for today’s purposes." Kellan set the practice post’s stray splinters aside. "Common through Fine, you’re mostly paying for ordinary materials and decent hands. Superior’s where craftsmanship starts genuinely mattering — like what you’re holding now. Past that, into Masterwork and Rare and beyond, you start needing rarer materials on top of the skill, and the two have to actually suit each other properly, not just be expensive separately. I won’t bore you with the rest today. You’ll learn the higher tiers when you actually need to, same as everyone does."
Arlen appreciated the restraint more than he let show, understanding well enough by now that a full lecture on sixteen tiers of equipment grading would have meant considerably less to him than the practical, hands-on demonstration Kellan had just given instead.
"Now," Kellan said, turning toward a side room Arlen hadn’t noticed before, "the rest of your kit."
The room held racks of hide and leather in various stages of treatment, and Kellan moved to one section in particular, drawing out a folded set of dark, russet-brown armor that looked, even at rest, considerably more supple than anything Arlen had worn before.
"Ridgeback hide," Kellan said, laying it out across the table. "Boar-type creature, mid Depths, tough enough that most blades barely mark it while it’s alive, and it keeps a good deal of that toughness even properly cured. Flexes with you rather than fighting you, which matters for someone who fights the way you do — quick, mobile, closing distance rather than holding ground."
Arlen tried the chest piece on over his shirt, and found it settling against him with a weight considerably lighter than he’d expected, given how solid it looked.
"How does it compare to plate?" he asked.
"Won’t stop a heavy strike dead the way good plate might. Won’t slow you down enough to matter either, which plate absolutely will." Kellan adjusted a strap along the shoulder with quick, practiced hands. "You’ve got defensive Aura technique already, if Aura Ward’s part of what your instructor taught you. This is built to work alongside that, not instead of it — the hide takes the edge off what your Ward can’t fully absorb, rather than trying to be a complete answer on its own."
"That sounds right," Arlen said, thinking of Aura Ward’s familiar shimmer, and beneath it, unspoken, the quieter, passive certainty of Bonebark Resilience settled permanently into his own skin — a second layer of defense Kellan had no way of knowing existed, folding neatly, invisibly, behind whatever the old smith could actually see and measure.
Kellan fitted the remaining pieces methodically — vambraces, greaves, a set of boots with soles thick enough to handle uneven dungeon stone without sacrificing the quiet, careful tread Arlen had spent months learning to manage on his own. He added a simple leather pack reinforced along the seams, and a proper belt fitted with loops for whatever potions or tools Arlen eventually accumulated.
"That’s the whole of it," Kellan said, stepping back to survey the finished kit. "Sword, armor, boots, pack, belt. Not enchanted yet — that’s its own conversation, for when you’ve got the coin and the patience for it. This’ll serve you honestly in the meantime, provided you don’t do anything foolish enough to test its actual limits in the first week."
"How much, all together?"
Kellan worked through the tally with the same unhurried efficiency he brought to everything. "Four gold for the sword, already settled. Armor set comes to three gold even — hide, fitting, and the reinforced stitching included. Boots, pack, and belt together, another gold and twenty silver." He glanced up. "Eight gold, twenty silver total, counting yesterday’s payment."
Arlen did the arithmetic carefully, the sum considerable against anything he’d spent before, though far from crippling against a year and more of steady quest earnings now compounded by the capital’s higher pay scale. He counted out the remaining balance without hesitation, the old, reflexive wince from his earliest days in Greyhaven entirely absent now.
"Worth every piece of it," he said, testing the weight of the pack across his shoulders, the boots solid and sure beneath him.
"Good customers usually say that before they’ve properly tested the gear," Kellan said, though something in his weathered expression suggested genuine satisfaction rather than simple sales patter. "Come back once you’ve actually used it down there. I want to know what needs adjusting, not just what felt right standing in my shop."
"I will."
"See that you do." Kellan turned back toward his forge, the conversation apparently concluded. "And if that sword starts feeling wrong under real strain, don’t wait until it fails you to bring it back. Steel tells you when something’s off, if you’re paying attention. Same as most things worth trusting."
Arlen left the shop fully equipped for the first time since Torv’s modest secondhand set back in Greyhaven, the new gear settling around him with a confidence that felt, walking back out into the Smith’s District’s afternoon bustle, like the last piece of ordinary preparation standing between himself and whatever the Sundered Depths actually had waiting for him.